When creating a theme and including acf-json folder the fields will not be imported into the database and will only be used from the theme folder. For setting up a theme that will use a child theme, create a filter that sets a second load point from the parent theme’s acf-json folder. There is a solution for this posted here https://support.advancedcustomfields.com/forums/topic/acf-json-fields-not-loading-from-parent-theme/
Whenever the parent theme is updated it will use the new json files and update all the field groups.
